


the meaning of magic

by hopefullydreaming



Category: Harry Potter - Fandom
Genre: F/F, F/M, Fem!Harry, Multi, Squib, Squib Harry Potter, but generally canon-typical violence, squib!Harry, the worst seventeenth birthday EVER, warning for cruciatus torture
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-19
Updated: 2020-07-06
Packaged: 2021-03-01 21:47:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 4
Words: 10,251
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23734084
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hopefullydreaming/pseuds/hopefullydreaming
Summary: Harriet Potter is, to some, the girl who lived. To others she is the girl who was lost. As a squib, Harriet has never learned of the truth behind her parents’ deaths, the scar on her forehead, or why snakes are always following around. When on her seventeenth birthday, the blood wards surrounding her break, she is confronted by Death Eaters and the Order of the Phoenix, and thrust into a world she knows nothing about and has no real place in.
Comments: 10
Kudos: 52





	1. The Potter Girl

Harriet Potter was counting down the days until she could get out of Stonewall High. The place was a dump for the kids in the ‘wrong’ part of Little Whinging. While most middle class families committed fraud, bribed officials and faked their address to get their children into a better state secondary, the Dursleys seemed to have done everything they could to make Harriet’s life miserable. Not only for the last six years that she’d been at this school, but every day since she had been left on their doorstep at a year old. She didn’t have a single memory of them trying to make her smile. Then again, Aunt Petunia rarely did smile, and neither did Harriet. She got told she was sullen, but she didn’t know how the Dursleys could possibly be surprised.

Anyway. She only had a year to go until she finished her A-Levels and could go... Somewhere. The Dursleys were chucking her out the minute she turned eighteen next year. Harriet had no idea where she was going, but anything was better than Privet Drive.

She took the walk home slowly, dreading the moment she’d have to step over the threshold of the house. Wash the floor, scrub the bathroom and the kitchen, cook the dinner and only have the scraps for yourself. Make sure Dudley gets the most food and don’t you dare say anything to upset him. She scowled at the thought but she’d return anyway, just as she did every night. It wasn’t like Harriet had anywhere else to go.

Sometimes when she’d been younger she’d imagined a long forgotten family member coming to take her away, to give her a loving home. She’d dreamed of men on motorbikes telling her she was magic, and of worlds bursting with light and excitement that the Dursleys would have condemned to their last breath. No one had ever come for her, though. Sometimes she thought she saw someone watching her, people in funny cloaks and hats, but they always disappeared when she blinked.

The snakes were weird though. They kept hanging out in the Dursleys’ garden, which drove Aunt Petunia mad. She always found a way to blame Harriet, but it wasn’t her fault snakes showed up. Her aunt seemed to think Harriet had summoned them, which was an entirely ridiculous thought. If Harriet did have the power to summon snakes to the Dursleys’ house, she would have summoned something that could actually hurt them. Of course she would undoubtedly get the blame and if any of them survived they’d see her thrown in jail for life, and no one would believe her innocence. A scrawny, hard-faced girl with ginger hair that was too wild and green eyes that were too bright. She had always been too wild for Privet Drive, but no one had let her out of her cage.

She was scuffing her shoes on the ground as she made her way down Wisteria Walk, waving at Mrs Figg as she passed with one of her many, many cats. She’d always liked Mrs Figg; she was a very boring woman, but she’d always been kind to Harriet, or at least kinder than the Dursleys had ever been. The air around them was unusually cold for the time of year, creeping over them. Harriet met Mrs Figg’s eyes - she looked nervous - and then hurried onwards with her head down back to the Dursleys.

“Hurry up, girl,” Aunt Petunia snapped when she let herself in. “Dudley got back ten minutes ago.”

“Sorry, Aunt Petunia,” she said, hurrying to take her shoes off and then hurrying into the kitchen to wash her hands.

“You’re making a chicken pie for dinner! Dudley’s favourite. My special boy got a C in his Maths test today!”

“Well done, Dudley,” Harriet said quietly as she stood by the sink. There was a snake hovering on the windowsill, eyes on her, watching. It was creepy. Most snakes weren’t that creepy. She hissed at it when Aunt Petunia wasn’t paying attention, and the snake’s eyes glinted red. With a shiver, Harriet turned back around, watching as Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon fawned over Dudley, who looked deeply frustrated by this behaviour and clearly just wanted to get out the house, probably to beat up another ten year old.

“Oh, he's ever so smart,” Aunt Petunia cried. Harriet rolled her eyes. “Our little Dudley.”

Harriet had gotten an A on her Maths GCSE, but the Dursleys had just called her a swot for that. She hadn’t tried very hard with her others, apart from English, but Maths had been important if she wanted to do anything with her life, and she did. Getting good grades was her way out, and while she’d gotten only gotten three As in her GCSEs - Maths, English and PE - she was determined that she’d do well in her A-Levels, get a job somewhere that paid her decent enough she could rent a flat that didn’t reek of damp, maybe go to university later in life if she wanted to. Aunt Petunia seemed to want Dudley to go to university, deluding herself that he might have a chance at Oxford. Still, he went to Smeltings. Anything was possible when you went to a school like Smeltings.

Very little was possible when you went to a school like Stonewall. It was probably why her aunt and uncle had been so determined to send her there. “Girl,” Uncle Vernon shouted, jolting Harriet out of her thoughts. “Dinner!”

She nodded quickly and got to work on the pie, listening to her aunt and uncle fuss over her cousin. It didn’t bother her anymore, not really. It wasn’t like she expected anyone to praise her or appreciate her. It just would have been nice.

The school term wore on and came to a close. Harriet was pleased with her mock results - Bs in Maths and Physics and a C in Chemistry. They weren’t brilliant, no, but they were good enough for her.

July was a strange month. On the one hand she had to put up with Dudley all the time, which she didn’t like, but she also had the relative freedom of going where she pleased. Plus, it was her birthday at the end of the month. She’d be turning seventeen. It wasn’t a major birthday, but it brought her one year closer to eighteen and the opportunity to leave this place forever.

She was on one of her daily walks around the town, debating on whether of not to head to the park and risk bumping into Dudley’s gang, when she felt someone watching her. Not in a predatory way necessarily, but definitely watching her. She crossed the street and turned slowly to get a look, but saw only the bottom of shoes that vanished in an instant. Odd.

The whole month seemed odd, actually. It was cold, and a strange mist seemed to hang over everything despite the fact that it should be the hottest month. There were more snakes, too. She kept getting funny looks from people when she walked down the street, because they would be tailing her, slithering along on the tarmac, and no matter how she hissed at them, they refused to go away.

One time she swore she saw a girl in a witch’s hat stare at her and whisper, “Not yet,” but she was gone in an instant. It could easily have been a trick of the mist. Maybe she was getting delusional.

But on the lead up to her birthday, Harriet realised there was definitely something strange happening. Mrs Figg disappeared and her house was reinhabited by two strange men who stared at Harriet every time she passed, almost like they knew her. She started avoiding Wisteria Walk, but then she met a scarred man with a fake blue eye on Magnolia Crescent who told her to be vigilant, and a ginger woman who stung her hands nervously when Harriet looked at her and hurried away, whispering strange words like ‘Muggle’ and ‘Squib’.

All in all she wasn’t that excited for her seventeenth birthday. She’d put aside some money from her job in the local newsagent’s, telling the Dursleys that they’d had to make wage cuts for the month, and had planned to get herself ice cream or lunch as a treat. God knew no one else would be treating her.

Harriet lay awake in bed that night watching her alarm clock tick onwards toward the number twelve. It was almost July 31st. She was almost seventeen. The clock ticked over and she had only a moment of feeling great, great unease before the conservatory downstairs shattered.


	2. The Battle Of Little Whinging

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for minor character deaths.

Aunt Petunia shrieked from her room and Harriet sat bolt upright, heart pounding. What was that? No one made a sound, though Harriet was waiting at any minute for Uncle Vernon to storm through and yell at her. He was very good at making things into her fault.

“Girl.” She turned around at the sound of an unfamiliar voice. A snake had slithered underneath the crack in her window, its yellow eyes glinting. She stared at the snake. “Girl.”

“Me?”

The snake bobbed its head, nodding. “Run.”

“What-“

There were feet on the stairs. Harriet stopped talking immediately, not stopping to think on why there was a bloody snake talking to her. “Girl!” Uncle Vernon’s voice roared, and his feet thundered onto the landing, headed straight for Harriet.

“I didn’t do-“

“Avada kedavra!”

There was a flash of green light and she heard Aunt Petunia scream. Something heavy hit the ground, and Harriet decided she had probably get ready to run. She stuffed shoes into her feet, and grabbed the chair from her desk, holding it in front of her.

The window behind her was hauled open and the next thing Harriet knew, someone had launched himself into her room. She yelped and jumped to the side. “Who the-“

“Get down!”

The boy wrenched her bedroom door open and ran into the landing. He was followed immediately through the window by a girl whose bushy hair smacked Harriet in the face, as she told her to hide and slammed the door. Harriet’s mind went at a mile a minute as people with unfamiliar voices yelled words she didn’t understand. Her hands shook as she clutched the chair. Who the hell had broken into the house? And why were they fighting and why had that boy launched himself through her bedroom window?

“Who are you?” Aunt Petunia’s voice shrieked. “Get out of my house!”

“Mum?”

“Avada-“

“No!”

“Stupefy!”

“Incarcerous!”

“Sectumsempra!”

“George!”

“Incendio!”

“What’s going on?” Dudley’s voice shouted.

“Duddy, get back!”

Everyone was shouting and screaming outside. Harriet stared at the snake on the window. She couldn’t just stand here, shaking pathetically as she held the chair.

Someone opened the bedroom door and Harriet ran at them, driving the chair towards them. They went flying into the fray of people, and for a moment it stopped, suspended in time. There were half a dozen or so people in black capes and masks, and another few standing around with sticks in their hands. For a second the whole landing was still with shock.

“Petrifi-“

“Protego!” the bushy haired girl cried, and a blue sort of shield rippled in front of Harriet. A jet of white light bounced off of it and hit the masked man, knocking him back.

“Girl!” Aunt Petunia shrieked over the ensuing din. “Get back in your room! Dudley, go!”

“Aunt Petunia, what-“

“Go, you stupid girl!”

She couldn’t go. They were all fighting and she didn’t understand why. It was absurd, people in cloaks and masks with sticks fighting it out in Number Four Privet Drive. The one who had yelled Petrify at her wheeled around again, mask sinister and warped in the darkness. And then she saw Uncle Vernon’s body at their feet. Her heart seemed to stop.

She’d never like her uncle, and he had hated her. But he was - he was dead. She’d never seen a dead body before. Dudley and Aunt Petunia were both white, terrified and horrified. Dudley looked like he was going to be sick. Harriet thought she might be the same.

“Harriet.” A tall man with a heavily shadowed face and wild hair grabbed her by the arm and she shoved him off, wheeling the chair around so that it almost hit him in the head. He ducked just in time. “You are Harriet Potter?”

“Get out of my house!”

She brought the chair around again and smacked him in the shoulder. He slammed against the wall. “Sirius!” another man yelled, running over.

One of the masked people tried to grab her next, and Harriet drove the leg of the chair into his throat, forcing him back against a wall with all her might. His weird stick clattered to the ground and he panted. People were falling around her, still yelling and lighting the landing up in horrifyingly bright colours. They glinted in the reflection of the man’s mask, and the world seemed to slow around Harriet for a moment. What was happening? What the actual bloody hell was happening? If she didn’t know better she’d say this was like magic, these weird lights flying from sticks - wands - and hitting people, hurting them. But that was nonsense. This had to be a nightmare.

She drove the leg of the chair further into the masked man’s throat and he gasped, scrambling for air. Her heart was pounding, and this was horrid, but she couldn’t let go. “Po - ter.”

She jerked the chair to the side and he went sprawling into the floor, clutching his throat. One of the others had turned on Aunt Petunia, raised his stick. “Avada kedavra!”

She didn’t even have time to scream as a burst of green light came shooting out of the stick and hit her square in the chest. She crumpled to the ground immediately. “Mum!” Dudley cried, and the same masked man turned on him. In an instant, Harriet could see what was about to happen. She ran forwards, tackling the masked man around the middle. He was much bigger than her but seemingly hadn’t expected this. She tugged him back and he stumbled just enough that the unmasked man Harriet had hit earlier could hit him in the back with the same spell that had just hit Aunt Petunia.

Harriet screamed, stumbling backwards into Dudley, who was trembling. She’d never seen him so terrified before. She’d never seen him terrified; he’d always been the one terrifying her. Mind you, she was terrified too now. She’d dropped the chair and it now balanced precariously on the ledge between the landing and the staircase.

“Harriet.” The wild haired man panted, appearing suddenly before her. “We have to get you out of here.”

She stared at him, speechless. “What the hell?”

She grabbed Dudley’s arm at the same time he reached for her. They met each other’s eyes in surprise for a second, but they were both thinking the same thing. Get to the stairs. Find - someone. One of their overly nosy neighbours must have realised what was going on.

For two people who hated each other, they had still lived together for sixteen years. And Harriet knew very well what Dudley looked like when he was about to punch something.

He hit the wild haired man straight in the face and the pair of them ran for it, clattering down the stairs. Harriet grabbed Uncle Vernon’s keys and Dudley grabbed his wallet, and Harriet snatched a coat from the wall as she turned the keys in the lock. Her hands were shaking and people were shouting upstairs, running down after them. She shoved the door open and sprinted out, Dudley on her heels.

He was built like a boxer, but he was still fit. Both of them were fast runners, sprinting along the street madly. “Duck into that shortcut at Magnolia Crescent,” Harriet panted. “Let’s hope they don’t know this place.

Dudley nodded his affirmation, still white with shock, and both of them veered sharply to the right, running until they reached the little alley between Magnolia Crescent and Wisteria Walk. Their feet pounded on the ground, and Harriet was sure it was too loud, sure that whoever those people were they were going to hear them, follow them, kill them.

She thought she was going to be sick, but she was too scared to do anything but run, with Dudley just behind her. A stitch seared pain into her side but she couldn’t stop running, even after she stumbled over her own feet, after Dudley went tripping into a wall.

“Dudley!” she yelled, grabbing his arm and yanking him upright. “Dudley, come on!”

“C-can’t.”

“For God’s sake, Dudley, come on, please!”

“M-Mum...”

“I know, but please, we have to get away!” Her eyes stung, she felt she was going to sob from frustration. “Dudley, please!”

“I... I can’t...” He was shaking as she held him. There were people’s voices near them, getting closer.

“I - I know, but we have to go! Dudley, run!”

He staggered to his feet, a pale and sickly green. He was swaying, but Harriet pulled him along towards the end of the alley and the kids’ playpark. She didn’t know how many times he’d beaten someone up here, but that didn’t matter now. She shoved the gate open and dragged him through, keeping to the thicker trees by the right hand side and hurrying as fast as she could through them. When at last the voices died down, she allowed herself to sink against a tree for a moment, catching her breath. Dudley lurched forwards and threw up onto the ground - thankfully not on Harriet’s shoes.

“Oh my God.” She thought she was about to go the same way as Dudley. She sank down, putting her head between her knees. “Oh my God.”

They were dead. Her aunt and uncle were dead, and those people in those masks, they were dead, and the others, were any of them dead? She’d seen blood, she realised. Was that one of them? How many were left, running after them? They couldn’t have been burglars. Burglars didn’t wear capes and didn’t carry sticks that made bloody spells, and burglars didn’t aim to kill and they didn’t fight each other.

Burglars didn’t know her name. Her head span. How had that man known her name? Were they after her? She wanted to scream, terror clawing at her throat. Oh God oh God oh God.

Then a thought seized her. They were dead - people were in their house and they were dead and she and Dudley had fled the scene. “Oh God. Dudley, the police. The police. Oh, shit!” She’d be blamed, she knew. She was always the one that got blamed. Dudley retched again. “Oh God. Oh God.”

“What was...” Dudley trailed off again, shaking. There was a splatter as his puke hit the ground again.

Harriet kept up a steady stream of curses until her cousin managed to sit up, panting. In the faint moonlight she could see the tracks of tears on his cheeks. “Oh my God. Dudley. Oh my God.”

“Mum and Dad,” Dudley said groggily. “What... What happened to them?”

“I don’t know. Dudley, I don’t know.” She gasped, breath shaking. “Oh my God.”

“Were they - are they - they’re not-“

“I don’t know, Dudley. I don’t-“

There was a sudden chill in the air. It whipped through the trees and Harriet’s head snapped up. Her stomach lurched. “Oh my God.”

She scrambled to her feet. This didn’t feel good, it didn’t feel right. A horrid sensation came over her, not only cold, but like she was being slowly immersed in water that she knew she was going to drown in. “Dudley,” she said. “Stand up.”

“I c-can’t.”

“Dudley.”

The chill ripped through her and seemed to steal her breath. She gasped, as invisible hands grabbed her chin, pulling her. There was something in front of her, a horrid shadow. It felt like she’d never be happy again. The thing’s breath rattled, and Harriet tried to scream, but no sound came out.

Dudley was gasping too. Something else had dragged him up into the air and he was struggling, flailing helplessly. His movements were heavy and sloppy and not the refined, sharp fighting movements he’d adopted over the years. A woman’s voice screamed in Harriet’s ears, echoing in her mind.

“Not Harriet! Take me, don’t hurt Harriet!”

“Stand aside, foolish girl!”

“No!”

“Stand aside!”

“I won’t let you-“

“Avada Kedavra!”

There was a flash of that too familiar, sickening green light before Harriet’s eyes and she screamed, feeling every ounce of happiness and warmth being sucked from her. Her ribs shook around an empty chest. “Expecto patronum!”

There was silver light ringing through the horrid darkness. Harriet felt herself falling, felt Dudley’s arm next to hers, and then there was nothing. She hit the ground.


	3. The Dark House

The next thing she knew she was in some random room in some random house that looked like it was probably haunted, and Dudley was pale and shaking on a bed next to hers. She hauled herself upright, wincing. Jesus Christ. What the hell had just happened?

“Harriet.”

It was the man from earlier. He hurried over to her and she lunged out of bed, looking for anything she could use to keep him away. “You get away from me!” He held his hands up. “I mean it.”

“I’m not going to hurt you.”

“You just - you just - you kidnapped me!”

“No,” the man said. “I saved your soul.”

“Oh!” she said, voice hysteric. “Oh, my soul? My bloody soul? You saved my bloody soul? What the hell is going on?”

“Harriet?” That was Dudley’s voice. Shaking, she whipped around, seeing him sweaty and pale on his own bed. “Harriet, what’s... who...”

Harriet made to stand in front of Dudley, though she knew she would be absolutely no good as protection. “You don’t come near us,” she told the man, who nodddd slowly. “You don’t try anything or I will gouge your bloody eyes out.”

He almost seemed to laugh, which made Harriet want to gouge his eyes out even more. “Where the hell am I?”

“I understand this must be a great shock to you, Harriet.”

“Yeah, no shit!”

“My name is Sirius Black.” What kind of a messed up, shit fake cover up name was that? “I’m your godfather.”

“Oh, how convenient.”

“Here. Have some chocolate.” She stared at him in disbelief. That was classic kidnapper tactics that they’d been warned against at the start of primary school. He clearly wasn’t up to date on the kidnapper manual. Oh, God, she thought. She had been kidnapped. It hit her; she was going to die. “You’ve just been attacked by Dementors. It’ll help, I promise.”

“I’m not eating anything from you lunatics,” Harriet said shakily.

“It really will-“

“No! Tell me what the hell just happened and maybe I’ll consider not gouging your eyes out.”

The mane who called himself Sirius smiled half a smile. “You are so much like your mother.”

That stopped her, if only for a moment. Dudley murmured, “What?” feebly from behind her.

“You don’t know my mother,” Harriet told him sharply.

“I did.”

“No you didn’t.” She glared at him fiercely. “You still haven’t told me what happened.”

“Sit down, Harriet, and I’ll explain everything.”

“Absolutely not!”

Sirius sighed. “Alright. Alright. This is... What do you know?”

She glared at him. “About what?”

“Your parents.”

Harriet blinked at him, at a loss for words. Her aunt and uncle hated to talk about Harriet’s parents; as far as she knew, they were drink driving and had a car accident. It killed them, gave her a horrid, ugly scar, and that was all she knew. “Her parents are dead,” Dudley said unhelpfully. He seemed to draw in a jolting breath. “My - my parents are...”

Harriet turned around just in time to see him lurch forwards and almost throw up again. “Can you get a bucket please?” she shouted at the man, who seemed to produce one from thin air and send it sailing to land neatly on Dudley’s lap. Harriet glared at him. “It’s alright Dudley,” she said quietly, even though it very much wasn’t. She turned back to ‘Sirius’ furiously. “What did you do to him?”

“That wasn’t us. That was the Dementors - have you heard of Dementors?”

She stared at him. He must be crazy, she thought. A crazy man with a crazy magic stick in a crazy, creepy haunted house. “No. Of course I’ve not heard of bloody Dementors.”

“Do you mean - don’t you know anything?”

She glared at this man, bristling. “I got a B in my Maths mock, thank you very much.”

Sirius laughed. It wasn’t a harsh, barking laugh like Uncle Vernon’s, but it still unnerved her. Oh, God. Her thoughts were all scrambled. Uncle Vernon was dead. She should have felt something more than she did, she thought, but she was too scared, and stuck wherever she was with this Sirius. She had to get out. “Well, I’m very proud of you, Harriet.”

“Piss off.”

“What did your aunt and uncle tell you about your parents?”

She glared at him, not liking how personally this conversation was steering. “Nothing. They died when I was little. Car crash. Dudley?” Her cousin grunted. “How are you feeling?”

A normal Dudley could have taken on this Sirius in an instant. But this Dudley wasn’t up to anything of the sort. Harriet faced Sirius steadfastly, trying not to let him see how her eyes moved around the room, looking for any way to escape. Sirius was between them and the door, and the window seemed to be at least two or three storeys up. There was a lamp on a bedside table that she supposed she could use to hit him over the head if it came to it.

Sirius considered her for a moment with abnormally pale eyes. He spoke quietly. “Your parents didn’t die in a car crash, Harriet.”

She stared at him. “What?” That was - they had died in a car crash. That was what her aunt and uncle said, and it was how Harriet had gotten the weird scar on her forehead. A broken edge of the car window scraped across it, she’d always thought. “Yes they did.”

Sirius shook his head sadly. “Have your relatives told you nothing of our world?”

“What’s that meant to mean?” They thought it was weird of Harriet to watch the news, but she still thought she knew a fair bit about the world. “What are you on about?”

“I should start at the beginning. Harriet, your father was a wizard. Your mother was a witch.”

She looked at him, just looked at him. She had no idea what she was meant to say to that, though Sirius was looking at her expectantly. “You’re mental,” she said. “Actually bloody mental.”

“I’m not.” He laughed humourlessly. “Have you ever done anything strange, made something weird happen, something you couldn’t explain? Something magic?”

“No,” Harriet said. “I’m not bloody magic, mate. You’ve gone round the bloody twist. You - you show up in my house, you start a fight, you - you k-kill-“ Dudley whimpered “-my aunt and uncle and now you - you kidnap me and Dudley and you - you try to tell me I’m a bloody witch or something? You’ve lost it, you’ve totally bloody lost it.”

“I have not lost it,” Sirius said tightly. “Really think, Harriet, please. Is there...” He looked incredibly disappointed as he spoke. “Have you really never done magic?”

“Are you having a bloody laugh? My aunt and uncle wouldn’t even let us try card tricks.” This seemed to trouble Sirius greatly.

“There must be something,” Sirius said quietly. “Unless Dumbledore... Harriet, there must be something odd that happens around you, something you can never explain.”

The snakes, she thought. Except that wasn’t bloody magic, that was just weird. It wasn’t like she tried to get them to follow her, and witches had black cats anyway, not snakes. “No,” she said flatly. “Dudley.”

“Harriet,” he groaned. “Don’t feel... Too good.”

“Chocolate will help.”

“No.” She hazarded a glance at Dudley, who had at least managed to get himself sitting up. She hoped he could recover soon, at least enough to let them make a run for it, but she didn’t know if she could expect that of him after what had happened. And then where would they go. She didn’t even know where they were, and right now they didn’t even have the advantage of knowing where they could hide. That hadn’t been enough to save them.

“Harriet,” Sirius said again. “Please. I understand how confusing this must be, but I promise none of us mean you any harm. Quite the opposite, in fact-“

“There are more of you?”

Sirius nodded slowly, almost condescendingly. “We are the Order of the Phoenix. There’s a lot we need to fill you in on, if you will let us.”

“You’re all nuts then,” she said. “This is some crazy - scam!”

“Scam?” Sirius laughed. She found it very difficult to resist throwing a lampshade at his head. “That’s the last thing this is. Your parents were in the Order, years ago, with me. Your father was my best mate at school.”

“Oh, good for you,” Harriet said shrilly. “Bloody brilliant!”

“They died to protect you, Harriet. They left you with your aunt and uncle so they could do the same.”

“Oh, well that worked bloody fantastic!”

“The wards protecting you shattered last night, when you turned seventeen. You’re of age now in our world. An adult.”

“Wards? What - what are wards?”

Sirius sighed. He seemed to be losing his patience a bit. “Perhaps this conversation would be better at another time. I can see you and your cousin and both still in a fragile state.”

“I’m not fragile,” Harriet said sharply, glaring at him. “You’re the one whose brains have flown off to fairy land.”

There was something like a smile on Sirius’ face. “I’ll give you some time.”

She breathed out, and nodded. He maybe meant time to get settled, or to get used to this, but she was going to take that time to figure out how to escape. “Where is the bathroom?” she asked Sirius, who seemed startled by the questions.

He answered nevertheless. “Turn right, at the bottom of the hall. Watch to be quiet; you don’t want to wake anything up.”

Then he left them. Harriet could breathe again. She sat down on the edge of her bed, putting her head in her hands. Her chest was tight with terror, and her head felt stiff with hopelessness. “Oh, God.”

“Harriet.” It was Dudley’s voice. He was sitting up now, still pale and greenish, and he was looking at her. “What’s going on?”

“I don’t know, Dudley,” she told him quietly. “This is... Mental.”

“They said - that man, he said... Magic.”

“Magic isn’t real, Dud.”

Dudley’s cheeks flames and Harriet immediately felt bad. “I know that,” he grunted. “Dad-“ He breathed in sharply. His lip wobbled, and at once it seemed his whole body was about to crumple in on itself. “They - they - they killed them!”

“I know.”

Dudley, who for Harriet’s whole life had been a fighter and a bully, who was doted on by his mother and father and often angry but never scared, looked as frightened as a baby. The both of them looked at each other for a moment, both of them scared and both of them still in shock. “Are they going to kill us?”

“I don’t know. They’re not the ones who - that man seemed to be trying to help, last night. He says he knew my parents.” She screwed up her face. Her head hurt, and she was tired. “I don’t trust them, though. We have to get out of here, the police will...” She shook her head. What would they think? Her aunt and uncle dead and her and Dudley done a bunk in the middle of the night. “Can you stand up?”

Dudley looked white as a sheet, but he pushed himself to his feet. Harriet nodded at him. “Good. I’m going to figure out my way out of here. If Sirius comes back, make sure that lampshade’s in reach. Tell him I’m in the bathroom.”

“Are you going to leave me?” Dudley asked, the terror shaking his voice.

“Of course not,” Harriet said softly, although she was sure in other circumstances he would have left her. “But it’ll be less conspicuous if you’re still here. I promise I won’t leave without you.”

Dudley shook as he nodded. “Alright.” He clenched his fist. “Alright. Go.”

She went quietly along the hall as Sirius had told her to. His voice hadn’t held much of a threat, but that didn’t mean anything. You don’t want to wake anything up. Definitely an evil villain threat. She went on her tiptoes, keeping to the wall, and stopped at the sound of voices.

“All I’m saying,” said a girl’s voice, posh and clipped, “is this was all very sudden for her. It’s one thing at eleven when McGonagall shows up and turns into a cat in your kitchen, she’s just been attacked by Death Eaters and seen her relatives die. This was all terribly planned.”

“There wasn’t much else the order could do, ‘Mione,” said a boy’s voice, less posh. “Dumbledore said specifically we couldn’t get take her away before she was seventeen. We got there as soon as we could.”

“It wasn’t soon enough,” Mione told him. “Those Muggles are dead now - and she could have been, too, and that other boy.” They meant Dudley. They didn’t know his name. Presumably they knew hers - but who the hell was Dumbledore?

“Least she’s safe now,” said another girl’s voice. “I can’t believe Dementors showed up - they must be working with You-Know-Who then, mustn’t they?”

“I’m not surprised,” the boy said. “Dad said they were last time, and how else would all those Death Eaters have gotten out of Azkaban last time?”

“Ministry corruption?”

“The Ministry and the Death Eaters are one and the same these days,” Mione said with a sigh. “And the Ministry’s always been corrupt, anyway.”

“Don’t start on house elves right now. It’s not the time.”

“I wasn’t going to, Ron. Oh, I do hope George is alright, I couldn’t believe Snape-“ Mione broke off.

Shit, Harriet thought, as footsteps approached the door, and she acquired the clumsy pretense of trying to walk down the halls. A girl with bushy hair pulled the door open, eyes widening when she saw her. “I was looking for the bathroom,” Harriet said quickly.

“Is it her?” the other girl whispered from inside the room. “Harriet Potter?”

“Quiet, Gin,” the boy said.

“It’s down the hall,” said Mione. “I’ll show you.”

Harriet wanted to object, but couldn’t. Mione had taken her by the arm and was leading her down the gloomy hallway, into a bathroom that didn’t look like it had seen a proper clean in weeks. She wrinkled her nose, suddenly longing for Aunt Petunia’s pristine, polished house. “We were meant to clean it,” Mione said, “but this place seems resistant to most of our charms, and I’m the only one who can properly do it the Muggle way, none of the others are very willing to learn.” She shook her head, and asked slowly, “Did Sirius explain everything?”

“No,” Harriet said. “Can I go in the toilet now?”

Mione blinked in surprise but, mercifully, did not protest as Harriet shut the door in her face and slid the bolt across. The taps were worn and dirty silver, twisted into the shape of serpents, and the toilet looked incredibly old fashioned, one of those sorts with a cord to pull. She didn’t need the toilet really. She thought she was more likely to throw up than anything else. Harriet sat down on the lid and pulled her knees to her chest, thinking.

Those people were in the room next to hers, probably to stop her trying to escape. She could have done it too, if she hadn’t stopped to listen to their conversation. And what on Earth had that all been about? Dumbledore? Death Eaters? Dementors? Azkaban? You-Know-Who? She did not know who, but the way those kids had spoken about him, it sounded like they were scared of him. Was he their boss? Was this some gang thing?

Uncle Vernon was always going on about gangs and drugs, had Dudley gotten mixed up? But no, they’d come for Harriet. They were all concerned with Harriet. She certainly wasn’t mixed up with drugs - public school boys like Dudley could get away with it, laugh it away as just one of those things and avoid any consequences, but girls like her had no such privilege. If her aunt and uncle had gotten the slightest hint she was mixed up with any drugs, she’d have been chucked out. And if it had been her aunt and uncle, well, she certainly would not have been a suitable hostage. And hostages were worthless when you already killed your enemy.

Oh, God. She rested her head on her knees. She didn’t know how, or why, but she knew the Dursleys were dead. They’d been so still and so cold, and their eyes... They were just dead.

None of this made sense. Let alone Sirius allegedly knowing her parents and being her godfather. She didn’t have a godfather. If she did, why hadn’t he ever shown up before? If her mother was a witch then why wasn’t Harriet one, too? It wasn’t like she knew enough about her parents to actually dispute anything Sirius had said - Aunt Petunia never talked about them, unless she was complaining about Harriet’s hair.

“Harriet?” Mione rapped sharply on the door. “Are you alright in there?”

“Fine, thanks,” Harriet called back, voice shaking and far too high-pitched. “Give me a minute.” She flushed the toilet, but didn’t move for a while. She’d seen stairs. Presumably they led to a downstairs hall, which ought to lead to the door out. They’d have to make it past Mione and the others first, though.

Dudley could take them out. In theory, anyway. Mione had talked about magic too, and the word Muggle - what the hell was muggle? Harriet got up, legs like jelly, and slowly washed her hands. The water was boiling hot, and her hands felt raw when she turned the tap off. Something hissed. She jumped, turning around, half expecting an actual snake to jump out. Had one followed her here? That would be a miracle, if it was venomous, then it could take out everyone for her. But there was no snake other than the ones on the taps.

She shook her head and dried her hands. She had to take a deep breath before unbolting the door, expecting to see Mione there. Instead she was confronted with a short red-headed, middle-aged woman carrying a tea tray, and a tall, very pretty young woman with sleek silvery blonde hair. “Sirius said you were up,” said the red haired woman. “Come on, dear, let’s get you some tea, you look awfully pale.”

“I don’t like tea,” Harriet said stiffly, and the red-haired woman’s face fell. “Sorry.”

“Coffee?” asked the blonde woman. She sounded French. “I prefer coffee.”

“No coffee,” Harriet said. “Thanks.”

Both women were staring at her, the blonde analysing, the ginger worried. “You’ve been through quite a shock, I imagine,” said the ginger woman eventually. “Not the way I would have done it, but there you are. Come along, we’ll find you something to eat.”

She guided Harriet back to her room. Dudley jumped up at the sound of the door, then looked alarmed again when he saw who was with her. “Who’s this?”

“Um.”

“Molly Weasley,” said the ginger woman kindly. “And you must be Dudley?”

Dudley stared at her. “How’d you know that? Harriet?”

She shrugged, not leaving the doorway. If need be, at least she could try and make a run for it from here. “We’ve been looking for your cousin for years,” Molly said. “You didn’t think we wouldn’t check up on you too?”

She made to step into the room, but Dudley grabbed the lampshade. “Don’t come closer. You - you - you killed m-“ He seemed unable to say the words, but Molly seemed to know.

“Oh, pet,” she said gently. “No, no, that wasn’t us. Oh, this is why I told them to explain things - but there wasn’t time - oh, dears, I expect you’re both awfully confused. Perhaps we should bring you downstairs, let you meet everyone.” She looked between them both with sincerely kind eyes that almost had Harriet letting her guard down, just for a moment. “We’re not going to hurt you, either of you. I understand you’re in shock, but this is the best place for you.”

Harriet let out a derisive laugh. “This is exactly what you’d say if you were planning to murder us! I’ve watched too many horror movies for this!”

“No one’s going to murder you,” Molly said.

“They murdered my aunt and uncle. Looked like some people were going to murder me if we didn’t get out when we did.”

“These people,” said the French girl firmly, looking down her nose at Harriet, “have saved your lives, not endangered them. You might at least listen.”

“Fleur,” Molly said, “thank you, but perhaps I could speak to Harriet and Dudley alone.”

“No,” Dudley said. “I mean, you... I don’t want to talk to you!” He shut his mouth, opened it again, and then shut it again. He seemed to have used up all of his words.

“I don’t trust you,” Harriet told Molly and Fleur plainly. “Last night, people broke into my house, killed my aunt and uncle, tried to do the same to me, chased us halfway through town, made us pass out, and kidnapped us and brought us to some random, creepy, haunted house.” Molly winced. “That’s not exactly trustworthy behaviour, is it? And then - then that bloke, Sirius whatever his face, starts trying to tell me my mum’s a witch!”

“It’s quite understandable that you don’t trust us,” said Molly. “But that’s why we need to talk to you and explain everything. Oh, this would have been so much easier with Dumbledore - no doubt that man would have the perfect solution - but we have you now and at least you’re safe, we ought to do the best we can.” She seemed to be talking more to herself than to Harriet, wringing her hands together nervously. “Will you come downstairs? We’ll have a - a proper meeting.”

“Meeting.” Harriet looked at her blankly. “No. I just said I don’t trust you, why would you think I’d go anywhere with you!”

“Harriet, please,” Molly said. “We are your best chance of survival. We only broke into your house last night because the Death Eaters got there first - the ones in the masks. They killed your aunt and uncle, not us. They were there to kill you.”

“Why should I believe you?”

“Because it is the truth,” said Fleur, as though it was so simple. “And we will show you it is so.”

“They were there because of her?” Dudley’s voice broke hauntedly between them. He was looking pale, eyes darting between Harriet and Molly and Fleur. “W-why? What did you do?”

Harriet looked indignantly at him. “I didn’t do anything!” she spluttered. “Th-this isn’t my fault! I’ve no idea what’s happening but I’ve not done anything!”

“I think we had better go downstairs,” Molly said. “It will be better for you to gain a full picture.”

“We’re not going anywhere,” Dudley said. “I want you to explain now! What’s she got to do with - with those people!”

“Nothing,” Harriet said firmly, though she was shaking a little. They couldn’t have been there because of her. She hadn’t anything to do with anything. “This is all a load of bullshit.” Molly winced.

“Perhaps you would prefer one of the children to see you?”

“We don’t want anyone,” Harriet said. “Do we, Dudley?” Dudley shook his head firmly, though he was still staring at Harriet, like he thought it was her fault those people had shown up. But it wasn’t her fault. She’d done nothing and she had no idea what was going on.

Molly looked at her very pityingly. Harriet squirmed. She hadn’t had many people look at her like that, but those who did were almost always teachers, and almost always useless at doing anything to help her. “I really am so sorry about the circumstances,” Molly said, wringing her hands. “If only Dumbledore...” She shook her head. “You don’t have to come downstairs just now. I understand it’s an awful lot to take in, especially when you don’t have the full picture. It would have been so much easier to do this when you were eleven, but you weren’t a witch and you weren’t to know, and look where that has us now!” She threw her hands up in the air. Harriet looked at her blankly.

“Have some tea,” Fleur told her, and handed over the tray. “Molly, we ought to speak to Remus.”

“Yes, yes.” Molly frowned at Fleur, who hurried back downstairs. She contemplated Harriet a moment longer before her eyes crinkled and she smiled kindly. “Come down when you’re ready, dears.”

She departed and Harriet set the tea tray down immediately, motioning for Dudley to join her by the door. When there was no sound of movement for several minutes, and she could hear only the babble of voices far below, she whispered, “We have to go now.”

“What did she mean?” Dudley asked. “They were there because of you?”

“Of course they weren’t,” Harriet told him irritably. “This is all some ploy. We have to get out and phone the police, there must be a phone box nearby. Come on.”

Dudley, unlike Harriet, was not accustomed to making no noise and pretending he did not exist. So their journey downstairs was very slow and very tense, especially when Harriet saw what looked like the stuffed head of a weird, long-nosed, bat-eared animal hanging from a wall, and jumped out of her skin. The house only got creepier as they went through it, and the itch of nerves clawed at Harriet while she made her way to what looked like it ought to be the front door.

She opened it and a strong gust of wing blew through the house. Something started wailing, and footsteps thundered up the stairs, but Harriet wasn’t taking any chances, sprinting out into the street with Dudley on her heels. They barely made it across to the park over the street when something blasted against the high iron fence, shattering the iron work with an unexplainable force. Harriet ducked down, pulling Dudley with her, stumbling onto the grass.

The next thing she knew there was a knife to her throat. “That wasn’t so hard,” a woman’s voice said, rough and cold. “Little Harriet Potter, I thought you’d be harder to find.” The cold edge of the blade drew a well of blood from her throat. Harriet was too terrified to move. “You do make things so easy for us.” She tried to breathe, but it felt like something was stopping her, invisible hands around her throat as the woman whispered, “The Dark Lord will be so awfully pleased with me.”


	4. The Dark Lord

This was messed up. This was all levels of messed up. Harriet struggled to breathe against the suffocating press of the knife. The woman holding her had straggly black hair and everything about her just screamed murderer. She was tired of being around people like that.

She chanced a glance towards Dudley, who was being held between two men who didn’t logically look like they should have been able to hold him at all. “That was some fight we had in your house,” the woman said into her ear, voice rasping and haunting both af once. “You hit my husband with a chair.” She cackled like that meant nothing. Harriet said nothing, swallowing. If this woman was after some form of revenge then she was done for.

“Bellatrix!” Sirius’ voice rang out. He was on the other side of the park - how had he gotten there - and running towards them. Something hit the woman and the knife fell from her hand - no, Harriet thought. It flew. It flew all the way over to Sirius, who caught it.

“Cousin,” Bellatrix snarled, and Harriet’s stomach did a horrid flip. They were related? Cousins. Were they in on this together? Was this a family mafia?

Harriet was knocked to the ground again. This was happening an awful lot, and she was not enjoying it. Years of living with Dudley had made her relatively accustomed to getting thrown about, and very good at running away, but right now she was too messed up and confused to run. Also, Dudley himself was managing to lose a punching match with two men who looked like they'd never seen a ring before, which wasn’t a great sign.

She scrambled to her feet, and ran at the two men who had Dudley, which was a mistake. Though Bellatrix was preoccupied in an entanglement wth Sirius, one of the men - tall, pale, long blond hair, looked like a git - reached out and grabbed Harriet before she could get any semblance of a punch in. It felt suddenly like she was being sucked down a very tight tube, and then she came out the other end, staggering and coughing.

“The Dark Lord,” the man rasped. “Draco, where is he?”

Harriet threw up onto a marble floor. A pale, blonde with deep bags under his eyes and a pointed chin looked down his thin nose at her. “He isn’t here, father,” the boy said, his faced fixed in horror as he stared down at Harriet. “Mother said not to call him until we had her and we were certain. Is that... Her?”

“Yes, Draco,” the blonde man snapped, but he whirled on Harriet anyway. “You are Harriet Potter?”

She stared at him, and in her panic managed to garble out the word, “No.” The boy Draco paled even further but his father merely bent down and picked Harriet up by the chin, his hand tight around her throat so that she couldn’t breathe.

“I know when I’m being lied to, little girl,” he crooned. “Are you or are you not Harriet Potter?”

“No! I’ve no idea what you’re talking- Ah!”

Harriet didn’t know what the man had said or done, but it didn’t matter. Pain like that she’d never known raced through her body, making her head spin and her ears ring. It felt like she was on fire. “I’ll ask you again,” the man whispered, “and if I don’t like my answer, then I’ll do that again. Are you Harrie Potter?”

She gasped as he let her go and tried to catch her breathe, but her nerves felt frayed and she swayed on the floor. “Y-yes,” she panted. “That’s my name, but I swear, I have done nothing to you and whatever issue you have with those other people I have no part of it, I shouldn’t be here at all, I’m just a normal girl!”

They didn’t listen to her protestations. A woman slipped in through the door, followed by a beaten, tiny, leathery looking creature with great floppy ears and round eyes like tennis balls. He quivered when he saw her, and blew his nose into the rag he wore. The woman did not seem to notice, sweeping across the room with the elegance only someone born into money could master. She laid a hand on Draco’s shoulder. “Is it her? Truly, Lucius?”

The man nodded. He rolled back his sleeve to expose a dark black tattoo of a skull with a writhing snake. Pain shot through Harriet from her forehead - from the scar she’d worn since she was a child. A gasp escaped her and she crashed to her knees on the floor, hot tears pricking at her eyes. She didn’t understand. These people were whispering now, words she couldn’t understand and didn’t want to. The strange little creature looked around the woman’s dress. ‘Go,’ it mouthed urgently.

‘Go where?’ she mouthed back. She wasn’t even sure she could move, and even if she did, she had no idea where she was. None of her escape plans in the last twenty four hours had worked.

Jesus, she thought, pain racing through her again. Had it really been only a day? Not even that.

But she was distracted from any other thoughts a moment later when, with a great shattering of glass, a windowpane broke and the woman from earlier flew - fucking flew! - into the room, followed by the others from the park. There was no sign of Dudley.

Harriet tried to get to her feet but couldn’t. She realised someone must have tied her to something, except there was nothing for her to be tied to, and she hadn’t seen anyone do it. “Those damned order brats,” the woman snapped. She had a cut on her cheek. “My blood traitor cousin. Our entertainment got away - and I was so looking forward to watching a Muggle pig dance.” Her smile was cold and she turned it towards Harriet. “Has the Dark Lord been called, Lucius?”

“We were just about to do so,” Lucius said smoothly.

“Well, be quick about it.” Bellatrix smiled. “If we do this, Draco’s misstep in June will all be forgotten. You will be the Dark Lord’s faithful once more.”

Draco seemed to edge away from his parents. His eyes flickered to Harriet and then away, out the window. A second later, her forehead was split by pain and she shrieked. A wind rose around her, a gleeful cackle rose through the air, and when she was forced to look up she saw the most grotesque man she had ever seen.

Pale and bald, robed in deep black and grey that seemed to be pure shadow, he had skin so pale it seemed almost translucent, exposing too-blue veins. His eyes were narrow like a snake’s, except they were the colour of spilled blood. He had no nose but merely two slits, more monster than man.

And when his eyes locked to Harriet’s, the only thing she could feel was pain and all-consuming terror.

“My Lord,” Bellatrix murmured, and the rest did the same. Harriet’s heart pounded. She knew this man from somewhere, like a deeply-suppressed memory.

He did not say a word to his followers, even as they bent to kiss the hem of his robes. Instead, he glided forward to Harriet, eyes lit by interest and hatred. A feeling of dread overwhelmed her as she struggled to her feet. “No curtsy for me, Harriet Potter?” he crooned. “I’m ever so disappointed.” His eyes raked over her face and body. “Those Muggles really brought you up through the mud, didn’t they?”

Fury flared in her and she lunged forward, but was stopped by a mere flick of his hand. “There will be no need for that. Nott, Parkinson. Lucius, Narcissa, Draco, leave us and send for the rest of the circle. I shall have a show here.”

“My Lord,” they each murmured in turn, leaving the room. Harriet watched them go and felt suddenly like screaming for them to come back. She had a feeling she’d been left with the worst of them.

“Now,” the Dark Lord said. “At last, the prize I have desired for so many years. The death of my supposed enemy... My equal.” He sneered. “A little squib girl raised by muggle filth.”

“Watch your mouth,” she snarled. She didn’t know what muggle or squib meant, but the Dursleys were dead and she’d hated them to hell but he had no right to speak about them. “I don’t know who the fuck you think you are, but you’ll shut up.”

“Or what, my dear squib?” His voice was mocking and cold. “Will you fight me?”

Bellatrix cackled. “I would kill you right now,” he whispered softly. “But I think an audience is in order. Soon enough, Harriet Potter...” He smiled. Harriet felt like throwing up again. “I have waited seventeen years to kill you. And now I have you trapped like the useless mouse you are.”

The doors opened again. A stream of people flowed into the room, most of them in black masks and robes and some not. Most of them were men and they all looked at her curiously, with a sadistic sort of hunger in their eyes. Terror choked Harriet and she looked away, refused to meet the gazed of anyone but the weird creature in the corner, whose eyes were still so wide and pleading. She didn’t know what it was or what it expected her to do.

“My friends,” the Dark Lord said. “This is a moment we have waited for for many a year.” Harriet was hauled to her feet, feeling woozy. The people gathered in the room smiled cruelly at her. Most of them seemed older, but a few - like Draco and the two burly boys behind him - seemed near her age. “Finally, Harriet Potter, the girl-who-lived, ready to die by my hand, as it must be. And all of you get to share in it.”

Most of them jeered, but Draco, his mother, and a sallow-faced, dark-haired man only smiled a little. That just made Harriet feel worse. She was going to die. She was going to die because these people were crazy and not all of them even seemed that happy and that felt worse because how could they be indifferent when she was going to die?

“Let this be a reminder,” the Dark Lord said. “That even those the Wizarding World hails as its saviours... are nothing to the night of Lord Voldemort.”

The name sent searing pain through Harriet’s forehead and she doubled over, teetering on the edge of consciousness for a moment. The people gathered in the room laughed, all but the sallow-faced man, whose face was stony. His eyes were fixed on hers as she brushed hair out of her eyes, trying to appear strong. “I don’t know what’s going on,” she said, as ‘Voldemort’ opened his mouth again. He turned on her with a sneer. “But you’re all mental, and when my neighbours realise your lunatics broke into a house and murdered people, you’re going to be sorry.”

“Ah,” Voldemort laughed. “See how the little squib makes her little threats?” The others all laughed harder. “Do you want to see a real threat, Harriet Potter?” Terror gripped her again. She didn’t know how it had ever left her. Maybe it was just making her crazy. “Nagini, come here.”

There was a slithering sound of scales across the marble floor. Harriet tensed for a moment, and then spotted the snake coming out from by the curtains. The tight coil of terror in her gut loosened a little. A snake. Thank God. “Help me,” she hissed under her breath, meeting its eyes for the barest of seconds. “Help me get out of here, please-”

She was hit by another burst of blinding pain, this time even worse than before. She was thrown back into the floor and convulsed, limbs spasming. She couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think, couldn’t feel or even begin to imagine anything but pain.

When it stopped, she was on the floor, flat on her back. No one was laughing now. She turned over and retched. Her insides felt like poison, like fire clawing at her trying to break through the longing of her stomach. Someone whispered- “a Parselmouth, My Lord?” One of the men seemed to look at her with fear.

“But, My Lord, how can that be? She is a squib, of no great line-”

“Silence!” Voldemort held up a hand and his people obeyed. Harriet sank back against the floor. She was sure some of her hair got in vomit but she couldn’t care. She’d be dead soon anyway. But whatever Voldemort was saying. “I believed myself the only Parselmouth alive. Now I see this girl has imitated my power... By what means I do not know, but Nagini is my loyal serpent.”

Her head was dazed, but the snake was staring at her from across the floor. It seemed almost curious, and Harriet couldn’t place why, but she felt strangely drawn to the snake. But she was going mad. She tried to flex her wrist, and pain raced through to her neck instead.

“Bellatrix,” Voldemort said, “have our prisoner locked up in the dungeon. Keep her alive - that house elf can do the work. I want to see what other Wizarding power she has leeched.”

Harriet didn’t understand why or how, but she was being pulled to her feet and marched across the room, flung down a flight of stairs and then locked in a cell. She hit the floor hard, pain jolting through her funny bone, and then she hit her head with a crack. The last thing she saw was that weird creature above her, eyes fretful, and an old man with wiry hair trying to wipe the tears from her cheeks.


End file.
